


Isn't That Cute?

by somegunemojis



Series: Tender Mercies [11]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:15:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26270242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somegunemojis/pseuds/somegunemojis
Summary: There's nothing wrong with having a little bit of heart.
Relationships: Alessio Rossi & Rainer Gersten, Bettino Tahan & Rainer Gersten, Bettino Tahan/Alessio Rossi
Series: Tender Mercies [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893175





	Isn't That Cute?

June, 2010 -- [LOCATION REDACTED]  
Gersten’s hands are pale, with veins so blue that they look like great stretches of river, sweeping through an icy landscape. The knuckles and tendons jut out, and his fingers are lean enough to look skeletal. They perfectly match the rest of him, pale and a little too long and sharp, right down to the near-white tuft of hair that sits atop his head. Those hands are sunburned, now, as are the high lines of his cheekbones, which Tahan only notices because his neck is so goddamn lily-white, where he’d kept his scarf tightly wound in the blistering sun. 

He gets up out of his cot, and paces. Opens the chest at the foot of Rossi’s cot, where the man watches with knowing amusement, and gathers a bottle of aloe gel, which he slaps down in front of the older man with force. Gersten, the bastard, has the audacity to grin at him, his cadaverous hands stilled from their task-- sharpening a wicked-looking blackened steel knife. Without a word, he drops the knife and slathers a generous helping of the goo on his hands, rubbing it into the burn and the calluses on his palm alike, before sweeping them over his pinked cheeks. Tahan turns back to his pacing, restless. 

Rossi watches this scene pass with the air of a particularly pleased jungle cat, lithe and lean and dangerous if he weren’t so lazy in the moment. The book in his lap lays open, ignored, no doubt some ancient novel in a language that Tahan doesn’t speak. The man insists they offer great insight into what he refers to as only, ‘the human condition,’ with his nose turned up like royalty. Gersten always laughs at that, and accuses him of reading racy trash in another language, just to hide the fact that he’s a pervert. It always turns him the prettiest shade of pink he thinks he’s ever seen, and he can’t help but wonder if the German agrees, the way he ribs him. 

His pacing is halted by one of those freshly-sticky, pale hands. Their gazes meet, warm cinnamon to the unidentifiable haze of blue-pale-red, and Gersten peels his lips from in a rictus grin, and the man’s dry rasp sounds like the scrape of a blade against sandstone when he murmurs, “thanks, flunky.” 

Tahan makes to pull away with a heavy eye roll, but Gersten tightens his grip, gaze unwavering. The grin slips from his lips, leaving nothing but a vast, blank sea. All of the life drains from him for a moment, the air around them seems to cool until the hairs on Tahan’s arms start to prickle, and his heart skitters around in his chest strangely when he hears Rossi sit up a little behind him, shifting his legs under his blanket. Just one moment of suspense, as the wraith pauses, and then vigor pours back into him in disjointed bits and pieces as he murmurs, “no, really. I appreciate you.” 

He does tug his arm away, a little more gently than he perhaps intended, and barely resists the urge to curl it close to his body and rub at the skin that seems to burn and tingle from the touch. It’s just the aloe vera gel. There’s a tense silence for a moment, before he remembers how to use his voice. “It’s just aloe.” 

Rossi scoffs behind him, setting aside his big book, and when he turns to see what the hell his problem is, the younger man is standing, stretching his arms above his head languidly. “That’s not what he’s talking about, darling.” His brows furrow at the casual response, but he remains perfectly still when Rossi leans against his back and settles his chin on his shoulder, draping himself like a particularly recalcitrant blanket. 

Gersten watches them with a considerate look on his face, and then thoughtfully picks up the knife, testing the edge of the blade with his thumb. “Oh? And what did you think I meant, _schatzi_?” 

Rossi’s arms tighten like a noose, a playful headlock that he lets himself fall into without a second thought. His voice is rich, warm and solid like rock heated by the late afternoon sun, and Tahan can feel the smile in the cheek pressed to his ear. “You know what I mean. He may not look it now, but he’s ferocious.” Heat floods his cheeks, and he splutters for a moment before Rossi shakes him once again into stillness, and continues. “And he’s sweet, like the loyal flea bitten stray you slip some meat to when your parents aren’t looking-- what are you laughing at?” 

With a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking a little, Gersten waves the question away while Tahan grumbles about the rather unflattering word picture being painted about his personage. “Nothing, nothing-- haha, you’re just talking about slipping the man some meat!” The joined pair groans as one at that, Rossi’s eye roll so exaggerated that he drags his willing captive closer when his whole body leans back with it. 

“Kiss my shapely ass, and let me finish--” Manfully, he ignores the quiet ‘that’s what she said’ that Gersten murmurs under his breath, and continues: “That-- that fierce kindness. It’s what we respond to.” 

Another long silence stretches, as each man in their cramped little tent ponders those words, before Tahan finally mutters, “Good God, he’s finally cracked. Like a little nut. I can’t believe I’m going to have to file a section eight report. The paperwork is going to be a nightma-- _ghghgk--_ ” He’s cut off when Rossi finally tires of the bit and tightens his grip until he’s choking, a little, and then releases him, coughing, and shoves him to take a seat when he laughs aloud. But Gersten … Gersten looks as if he’s seriously giving it thought, eyes narrowed and head tilted like a bird of prey. 

“Is there more of that speech planned?” He asks, and then laughs when Tahan groans and flops back onto his cot, trying to smother himself with his own hands. 

Rossi puffs out his chest, smug. “I’m glad you asked. I have an entire metaphor for it. The head, the heart, the hands. For the three of us.” He kicks at Tahan’s knee when he groans dramatically. “I’m the head, obviously. Because I’m the only one with any brains around here.” 

Gersten gamely agrees with a swift, “Oh, absolutely.” Tahan sits up, alert like a wary mutt. 

“Rainer is the hand.” 

Tahan makes an ‘eh--’ sound at that, lifting his own hands and waving them meaningfully. 

“Quiet from the peanut gallery, please. I thought about it, but Gersten is far better with a knife, and he’s about as empathetic as a brick of cheese.” The man in question pauses in his renewed quest to sharpen the blade, considers that, and shrugs-- a silent ‘fair enough’. Tahan gives him a mortally wounded look that implies he’s a traitor, while Rossi takes a seat next to him and settles a warm hand over his diaphragm. “Which makes you the heart. Isn’t that cute?” 

The bastard is smirking at him. Tahan wipes the smug little grin right off his face with a powerful swipe of a pillow, initiating what may be the rowdiest brawl the forgetful little firebase ever saw.


End file.
